Help:Quick guide to editing

This page provides quick tips on editing. You may also wish to review the more detailed formatting guide. Before you can edit, you'll need to quickly register with a valid email address, which is done to deter spammers and vandals. Once you've registered, editing a page is as easy as clicking the "edit this page" tab at the top of the window."

Editing cheatsheet
See SourceWatch:How to edit a page for more detailed explanations and advanced syntax.

Sourcing an article
See SourceWatch:References for more detailed explanations and tips on sourcing.

Every assertion made on SourceWatch should have an outside source. In most cases this should be a webpage or online document that can be linked to (see SourceWatch:References for help on referencing offline sources). The easiest way to cite a source is to put a link between two square brackets after the sentence or paragraph that draws from it, which automatically turns it into an auto-numbered footnote (see the first "external link" example in the chart above). You should then add a citation to the source in the "Articles and resources" section at the bottom of the article, which serves as a bibliography in SourceWatch articles. To add the citation you will generally need this information:


 * Name of the author (or organization that produced the source)
 * URL of the site where the information was taken
 * Name of the source
 * Name of the publication
 * Date the information was published

You generally want to put the citation in a bullet and format it like this:


 * Author, "Title," Publication, Date.

To get this format, you enter

If editing someone else's writing, leave a note
If you are editing or deleting someone else's writing, it's a common courtesy to leave a note on an article's discussion page (found by clicking the "discussion" tab at the top of the article) explaining your reasons why. It would probably then be a good idea to check back a little later to see if other editors responded. Remember: be cool, be collaborative and talk things out. "Edit wars" are never fun and rarely productive.

Creating a new page
See SourceWatch:How to start a page. Remember to follow the naming conventions in titling the page.

Acknowledgment: The first chart on this page was originally copied from Wikipedia's Wikipedia:Cheatsheet.